Week 5

I went over to the lab last Tuesday for my final observation.  I did not get back on the camera microscopes because I already had enough pictures from past weeks and others needed to finish.  I was still able to observe the tank for an hour and see what activity was taking place in the other microscopes.

The activity has slowed down quite a bit.  I found a few of my Dero worms again, but some had died and were at the bottom of the MicroAquarium (Pennak, 1953).  Others were around the plants in the MicroAquarium feeding.  For as many as I saw the previous weeks, there did not seem to be many still alive.  Another organism that I observed again was the Euplotes swimming around throughout the tank (Patterson, 1992).  There were still many of these along with many Goniomonas (Patterson, 1992).

Each week, there seemed to be more and more activity until this week.  I am not sure if they ran out of food, lacked light, or what the deal was, but many organisms have recently started to die off.
I saw many other organisms that were very small but difficult to identify.  I was not able to find any new large organisms in the MicroAquarium that I have not identified.  Overall, the observations went well and I enjoyed seeing all of these small organisms and learning about each of them (what they fed on, where they liked to be in the Aquarium, etc).  I did not realize just how many micro-organisms lived in the different water sources until I observed my MicroAquarium these past weeks.

Week 4

In week four of my MicroAquarium observation, it was very similar to the previous week (Week 3).  There was very much activity going on throughout the entire aquarium.  I was able to discover and identify a few new organisms that I had not seen previously.

The first organism that I ran across was Euplotes sp., which can be identified in Figure 260 on page 124 of Free Living Freshwater Protozoa (Patterson, 1992).  This organism was very interesting looking as I watched it move around in the water.  It appeared to have a "bubble" around its entire body (Figure 1).  It also had many leg type body parts attached at the front of its body and also the rear end (Figure 1).

The next organism I discovered was Cyclidium sp., which I identified on page 149, Figure 332 (Patterson, 1992).  Cyclidium was a "tear drop" shaped organism.  It had many hair like structures around its entire body, which I believe were legs that it used for swimming around in the water (Figure 2).  There were many of these organisms throughout the tank.

Goniomonas sp. is a very small organism that I identified on page 62, Figure 99 (Patterson, 1992).  There have been many of these organisms swimming throughout the MicroAquarium each week I have observed.  These little organisms are very small and hard to identify.  They are also very quick so capturing a good quality image was tough.  They tended to spin in circles really fast and then shoot off in the distance.  At times, they were hard to keep up with under the microscope.  They appeared white in color (Figure 3).

The last organism that I was able to identify was Euchlanis sp. identified on page 182, Figure 14 of Fresh Water Invertebrates of the United States (Pennak, 1953).  This rotifer was pretty neat to observe.  It was see through so I was able to see the inside body parts at work (Figure 4).  There were many rotifers throughout the entire aquarium that I was able to look at.

These four organisms listed above were the only ones I was able to identify this week.  In the bottom of the tank, I saw a few dead organisms; many of which I was unable to identify.  One organism that I believe was dead was the Dero worm that I identified in last weeks blog.  This is the first week that I have seen any dead organisms.  Overall, the activity is still high throughout the MicroAquarium.  There are many organisms that Dr. McFarland and I saw, but were unable to identify due to how small they were.  I look forward to observing my MicroAquarium one last week before writing up my lab report on everything that has happened.

Figure 1 shows the Euplotes sp. swimming around in the MicroAquarium (Patterson, 1992).

Figure 2 shows the Cyclidium sp. with the "hair like structures" swimming (Patterson, 1992).

Figure 3 shows the Goniomonas sp. (white organism, not brown object) in the MicroAquarium (Patterson, 1992).

Figure 4 is the Euchlanis sp. (notice the see through body) as it swims around searching for food (Pennak, 1953).